Ancient World Seminar

The cosmos in a box: materiality and the Antikythera mechanism

13:00; Digital Lab (Arts West 213-215) (map here)

In this paper, I analyse the Antikythera mechanism from a material perspective. Pulled out of the ocean in 1901 by sponge divers, this object has an intriguing historiography: almost tossed back into the ocean, a source of epigraphic fascination, hidden in museum storerooms, the topic of a paper in Nature, and widely hailed as ‘the world’s first computer’. Along the way, scholars have come far in piecing together the fragments of this elusive object allowing for a progressive understanding of how the Antikythera worked, what it might have been used for, and how it fit into the scientific culture of the second century BCE. This paper starts where those investigations end, asking how the rather unique materiality of the Antikythera mechanism interacted with the information it presented, and specifically how it then functioned as a scientific model of the cosmos. In doing so, I hope to provide insights into how the object’s visual and material features including the inscriptions, visual arrangement of information, and the human-object interactions formed and informed the function of the object as a scientific model working as a concept of the ‘middle’ between astronomical theory, mechanical model, and representation of the natural world.

Tatiana joined the ANU’s Centre for Classical Studies as a Lecturer in Classics in 2023. Prior to this, she was the Moses and Mary Finley Research Fellow at Darwin College, University of Cambridge. Tatiana is ancient Greek cultural historian with particular interests in ancient technology, entertainment, and religion. Tatiana is the author of Technologies of the Marvellous in Ancient Greek Religion (2025, Cambridge University Press) and co-editor of Technological Animation in Classical Antiquity (2024, Oxford University Press).

Roman Africa's Periodic markets: trade and transformation in the frontier zones

14:00; Arts West North Wing 553 (Level 5, Arts West North Wing) (map here)  and via Zoom

Whereas Roman Africa’s frontier zones have long attracted a scholarly focus on military occupation, conflict and segregation, this thesis contends they provide a rich source of information relating to the economic, social and cultural interactions between civilian and military populations through the medium of local trade. Advocating a mediatory role for periodic markets in socio-cultural integration, the thesis also challenges the view that African productivity and trade only began with Roman occupation.

The scholarship on periodic markets has predominantly concentrated on the Italian mainland. On the other hand, studies of North African periodic markets have relied heavily on limited inscriptional evidence pertaining to the private ‘domanial’ markets of north-central Numidia. While their ephemerality makes locating them challenging, the identification of periodic markets is not impossible. This research, presenting case studies of likely market settings drawn from Numidia, Africa Proconsularis and Tripolitania, provides a greater sense of geographic and chronological cohesion and emphasises their importance. The case studies, comprising village settlements on the frontier peripheries of the Aurasian mountains (Algeria) and the Tripolitanian pre-desert (Libya), highlight the mobility and economic exchanges of populations within and beyond the frontiers. The research examines measuring tables as important indicators of periodic markets. Revealing the vitality of interactions between civilian and military communities, measuring tables also point to the increasing geographic and economic integration of trade networks across Roman Africa.

Rosemary Morgan is a final-year PhD candidate in Roman Archaeology/History at the University of Melbourne. Prior to commencing post-graduate studies in Classics and Roman History, Rosemary was a secondary school teacher and Assistant Principal. She completed the Graduate Diploma in Arts (Advanced) in 2022. Her thesis, an epigraphic study of elite munificence (Spectacle Benefaction and the Politics of Appreciation: Case studies from Italy, Gallia Narbonensis and Africa Proconsularis), was published by Brepols in 2025. She was the recipient of the Archaeological and Anthropological Society of Victoria’s Alpha Prize in 2025.

Universal Dependencies for Hittite

18:00-19.00; Zoom only

This lecture will introduce Hittite, the earliest attested Indo-European language, and discuss what it means to work with such a language in a modern annotated corpus. It will give a brief overview of Universal Dependencies (UD) as a framework for syntactic annotation and then turn to the specific difficulties posed by Hittite material. Among them are the behaviour of second-position clitics, the frequent absence of overt subjects (partial pro-drop), and the mixed character of the orthography, where Hittite cuneiform goes alongside Sumerian and Akkadian in the same text. The lecture will use these problems to show how ancient languages can fit into universal syntactic annotation rules.

Dr. Maria Molina is a Hittitologist and linguist whose work combines ancient Anatolian philology, corpus linguistics, and computational approaches. Her research focuses on Hittite syntax, semantics, and discourse, especially corpus annotation and the development of digital resources for Hittite. She is currently working on a Universal Dependencies treebank for Hittite. Her other projects include a syntactically annotated corpus of Hittite letters and instructions, as well as a database of emotional contexts in Hittite texts. She received her PhD from the Institute of Linguistics in Moscow in 2019, with a dissertation titled “Word Order in Hittite: Corpus Study and Analysis in Typological Perspective.” Since 2022, she has been a postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Cultures at Tel Aviv University.

Selinuntine Pottery Production and the Inland Economy of Western Sicily

13:00; The Digital Lab, Room 213-215, Level 2, Arts West (map here: select L2) and via Zoom

The PhD project, currently titled “Die Distribution und Konsumption der Selinuntiner Keramik,” examines the trade relations of the Sicilian city of Selinunte with its neighbouring communities. Drawing on the archaeological evidence from the potters’ quarter, the project aims to situate Selinuntine ceramic production within a broader urban and regional context. Particular emphasis is placed on quantifying the consumption and distribution of these products in western Sicily in order to shed light on chronological developments and the nature of Selinunte’s economic interactions with surrounding cities. The presentation on April 13 will focus on Workshop S16/17 excavated at Selinunte, as well as on the potters’ quarter as a whole. Special attention will be given to the production capacities of both the workshop and the quarter overall. These findings will then be contextualized within a wider urban and regional framework.

I began my studies in Classical Archaeology and Art History in 2014 at the University of Bonn. In 2018, I studied at Sapienza University in Rome, and in 2019 I submitted my Bachelor’s thesis on the topic: “πινακίσκοι ἰχθυηροί. On the distribution and use of Greek fish plates.” I completed my Master’s degree in Classical Archaeology in 2022 with the thesis: “Volneratus deficiens. On the subject, iconography, and context of ‘Protesilaos’ and other wounded heroes in 5th-century BC sculpture.” Both my Bachelor’s and Master’s theses have been published as articles (journal KuBa). During my studies, I also worked on excavation projects in Germany, Sicily, Tunisia, Israel, Turkey, and Italy. In 2016, I participated in the excavation of the Selinuntine potters’ quarter, which forms the basis of my PhD project that I have been pursuing since 2023 within the framework of a joint PhD between the universities of Bonn and Melbourne. Since October last year I’m in Melbourne.

Eugraphius' commentary on Terence between late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages

13:00; The Digital Lab, Room 213-215, Level 2, Arts West (map here: select L2) and via Zoom

The Commentum Terenti attributed to Eugraphius, in the form in which it has been transmitted, is best understood as a fundamentally medieval textual construct, within which an unquestionably older—most probably Late Antique—exegetical nucleus has been repeatedly reworked and enlarged through the incorporation of other materials. What emerges, therefore, is in all likelihood a product of the Carolingian scholarly milieu, one that condenses within itself several centuries of exegetical engagement with Terence.

The only critical edition of the commentary still available, published by Paul Wessner in 1908, unquestionably represented a major philological achievement. Based on an almost exhaustive recensio of the extant witnesses, it provided, for the first time, a genuinely critical text accompanied by a full apparatus, established with considerable philological skill, and emended in hundreds of passages. Yet, more than a century later, the methodological premises on which Wessner’s edition rests call for renewed examination. A fresh reassessment of the manuscript tradition, together with the advances made in the editorial treatment of scholastic and exegetical texts, now makes it possible—and indeed necessary—to reconsider the textual status of the Commentum and the criteria by which it should be edited.

Luigi Pirovano is Associate Professor of Latin Language and Literature at the University of Bologna. His research focuses on two main areas: the ancient exegesis of Virgil and Terence (Tiberius Claudius Donatus, Servius, and Eugraphius); and Greco-Roman rhetoric (progymnasmata, status theory, and rhetorical categories as tools for literary criticism). He recently published a critical edition, with translation and commentary, of Book 1 of Tiberius Claudius Donatus’ Interpretationes Vergilianae (Bologna 2025), and is currently preparing a new critical edition of Eugraphius’ Commentum Terenti and of Emporius’ rhetorical excerpts.

Vestals, Matronae, and Feminae Principes in the late Republic

13:00; The Digital Lab, Room 213-215, Level 2, Arts West (map here: select L2) and via Zoom

The period 201-30 BCE was marked by profound and continuous socio-political, socio-economic, and religiopolitical change, which impacted both the res publica libera and the socio-political elite of Rome. Much scholarship has traced the political culture of the male elite yet the longue durée of elite women’s lives and political influence has largely escaped in-depth surveys and investigations. This paper, born out of my doctoral thesis “Matronae, Vestals, and Feminae Principes: Power and Influence from the Age of the Scipio’s to the Age of Civil War”, will focus on the religiopolitical influence of the Vestals and on how elite Matronae accumulated and used their influence and power within and outside of the family. In so doing, the paper challenges the status quo and prevailing view on elite women and the Vestals. The paper seeks to bring elite women into the history of the socio-political elite of the late Roman Republic as active and integral agents who wielded significant influence and power with a potential for far reaching impact.

Christian Hjorth Bagger is a final year PhD Candidate in Ancient History at the University of Melbourne. Christian is the current editor of Classics and Ancient History at Kylix, as well as a sub-editor on the Danish Online Encyclopaedia where he oversees topics on the Roman Republic. In 2025 Christian was the Alan Rodger Postgraduate Visiting Researcher at University of Glasgow School of Law and a Ridley Scholar at the British School at Rome. Most recently, Christian has been named the 2026 recipient of Her Royal Highness Princess Margrethe’s Roman Award by the Danish Academy in Rome.

Holy hunger: emotional eating in the Byzantine world

How did the Byzantines eat? How did they feel when they were hungry? Did they express certain emotions about food? This lecture explores food in Byzantium as an emotional and bodily experience. I suggest that hunger and restraint shaped not only the body but the self. Focusing on monastic practice in particular, I argue that controlling appetite was central to Byzantine emotion. Eating—or not eating—was a daily practice where emotions were trained and reinterpreted. Building on ascetic texts from Gregory of Nyssa to John Climacus, as well as wider Byzantine attitudes toward food as morally charged, I show how dietary discipline was necessarily emotional. The struggle with appetite was spiritually prescriptive and constituted a large part of ascetic life. Rather than treating fasting as deprivation, this lecture frames it as an emotionally complex practice in which stress, fatigue and restraint were integral to transformation. In this tension between desire and control, Byzantine ‘holy hunger’ is a way of understanding how emotions were produced through the disciplined body.

Olympia Nelson is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Modern Greek & Byzantine Studies at the University of Sydney and the Early Career Researcher Representative for the Australasian Association for Byzantine Studies. Through visual art and literature, her research examines emotion in Eastern medieval contexts including gender, monasticism and dietary practices. By tracing these expressions both in literary and artistic forms, her work offers new perspectives on how Byzantines performed and regulated emotion in sacred and everyday life.

13:00; The Digital Lab, Room 213-215, Level 2, Arts West (map here: select L2) and via Zoom

Literary Constructions and Archaeological Narratives: an interdisciplinary analysis of the ancient Roman rural landscape

The Roman countryside has been a subject of fascination since ancient times, but past scholarly literature on the ancient Roman rural landscape has failed to take a true interdisciplinary approach. My thesis seeks to address this gap in the literature, using an interdisciplinary approach combining and comparing both archaeological and textual sources to gain a deeper understanding of the ancient Roman rural landscape, to test the veracity of the claims made by the Roman agronomists, and to begin to identify a methodological approach to better utilise both forms of evidence. It investigates the works of Cato, Varro, and Columella through a comparative analysis using archaeological data from a selection of sites. It identifies gaps in both forms of data and how the two, used together, can expand our understanding of the ancient world. This study found that the claims made by the ancient authors are borne out in the archaeological evidence in some areas, particularly larger-scale issues. Generally, however, the archaeological evidence reveals a more diverse picture of the ancient countryside. While there is overlap in the information they provide, they often have different scopes and provide access to different types of information, making both essential to a full understanding of the ancient Roman rural landscape. This presentation will focus on two focus areas of the thesis: the layout of ancient farm buildings and crop diversity. It  will also outline the methodological approach taken and present some conclusions from the thesis.

Ruby Mackle is a final year MA candidate in Classics and Archaeology at the University of Melbourne. Her focus is interdisciplinary studies utilising both literary and archaeological evidence. She is the treasurer for the Classics and Archaeology Postgraduate Society and graduate research student representative for Classics and Archaeology. She completed her BA(Hons) in 2022 at the University of Otago in New Zealand.

15:00; The Digital Lab, Room 213-215, Level 2, Arts West (map here: select L2) and via Zoom

Moving the Great King: Logistics and the Practical Limits of Achaemenid Royal Mobility

In the mid-1st millennium BCE, the Achaemenid Great King governed not from a single fixed capital, but through continual movement between the empire’s major centres. Although this itinerant model of kingship is attested in Classical and Achaemenid sources, the practical conditions that enabled the relocation of the royal court have rarely been examined systematically. This talk explores Achaemenid royal mobility as a logistical system shaped by the material constraints of travel across the empire. Drawing on ancient evidence, comparative material from other pre-modern courts, and transport studies, it argues that royal itineraries operated within clearly defined limits that structured the timing, routes, and wider geography of court circulation. Rather than being improvised, royal mobility depended on an organised infrastructure of roads and way-stations that temporarily transformed each halting points into a mobile centre of imperial authority. These parameters also provide the basis for GIS predictive modelling aimed at reconstructing potential corridors of royal movement across the empire. Taken together, this evidence points to a highly organised system whose logistical demands shaped the geography of imperial rule. Foregrounding the material conditions of royal travel offers a new perspective on how Achaemenid power was sustained across vast distances.

Dr. Davide Salaris is a postdoctoral researcher specialising in the ancient Iranian world, with a particular focus on southwestern Iran from the 1st millennium BCE to the early 1st millennium CE. His work combines the study of ancient landscapes, mobility, and imperial infrastructure with Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Remote Sensing to advance the archaeology of the Ancient Near East. He studied Ancient Near Eastern Archaeology at the University of Rome “La Sapienza” before completing an MA in Archaeology at the University of Sydney and a PhD in Ancient History and Archaeology at Macquarie University, Sydney. Dr. Salaris is currently a Marie Skłodowska-Curie European Fellow, funded by UKRI (2024–2026), at the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge, where he works under the supervision of Professor Cameron Petrie. His current project, PersianTRAIL, investigates infrastructure and mobility within the Achaemenid Empire through GIS and Remote Sensing, with particular attention to the Persian Royal Road and the logistics of imperial connectivity.

13:00; The Digital Lab, Room 213-215, Level 2, Arts West (map here: select L2) and via Zoom

Horizontally (and Vertically) Inclined: On the Construction of Gospel Synopse

Throughout the history of Christianity, readers of the New Testament Gospels have noted the differences between these texts. For many centuries, Christian readers sought to harmonise away these differences in the literary production of Gospel harmonies. But for others, especially since the 18^th century, the differences between the Gospels have led to important developments in New Testament research, most notably Gospel source criticism, redaction criticism, and the various “Quests” for the Historical Jesus. An important resource in this research has been the Gospel synopsis. This paper will explore the origins of Gospel synopses, the construction of these texts, and the usefulness of them in contemporary scholarship. In addition, the Dr Derrenbacker will present his own work in revising a popular Gospel synopsis for publication.

Dr Robert Derrenbacker is a New Testament scholar who has published widely on the Synoptic Gospels, ancient book production and the Synoptic Problem, and the Fourth Gospel’s potential literary connection to the Synoptics. Having earned his PhD at the University of Toronto, Dr Derrenbacker is Dean at Trinity College Theological School (University of Divinity), where he also teaches subjects in the Synoptic Gospels and the letters of Paul. He is also an Anglican Priest and is a Clerical Canon at St Paul’s Cathedral (Melbourne). He is an American by birth, but also holds citizenship in Canada and Australia.

13:00; The Digital Lab, Room 213-215, Level 2, Arts West (map here: select L2) and via Zoom